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Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy

A friend of mine sent me a post entitled: “Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy”. It discusses some of the reasons behind 70-80-90 ‘s generations’ unhappiness . The bottom line is that the generation after baby boomer is unhappy because: 1) they overestimate themselves, 2) they have high expectations.

I partly agree with the content, however I should say that some of the reasons are more valid in Canada and US, where in early education, they learnt to consider themselves special. I could have seen this myself, after I moved to Canada. I don’t say we don’t have it, I just say, in our culture in Iran, we have been taught the opposite; we have been taught everyone else is special and we should learn from them. There was another study in US showing that the first thing US parents say about their children is that “s/he is genius” whereas in europe parents say “s/he is healthy, happy, etc”.

The second fact which was ignored in this article was the question: ” what is each generation’s expectation”? For a baby boomer, just being alive and not in the war was an expectation, anything more than that was extra and indeed a source of happiness. Not to mention the sudden excess of resources and wealth in US. A recent study have shown that the average income in US in 2012 is less than 1989! However, for a GYPSY, they have seen their parent, and they have seen that is not fulfilling. Just working everyday and having enough resources to raise your children is the outcome, but why someone should be happy about this? Living is different from just being alive (“the 70’s show” picture some parts of life in 70’s in US which is worth watching)! This is the point where the questions like “why am I here?” and “What am I doing here?” arise!

At the end, we should not underestimate the effect of news, movies, and documentaries advertising the whole idea of increasing expectation. I agree that we should not overestimate ourselves, however, don’t underestimate either. We should stay away from greed, and have a bottom for our expectations. Finally, we should stay away from “(un)social media”!